


miles to go before i sleep

by towine (blacktreecle)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: First years as third years, Gen, Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 08:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15069107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktreecle/pseuds/towine
Summary: Tsukishima, Hinata, and Kageyama on a long drive to Tokyo. It's not as disastrous as it sounds.





	miles to go before i sleep

**Author's Note:**

> this is a fill for sportsfest happening over on dreamwidth! the prompt was 3-4 karasuno members + summer vacation on a long road trip. i realized after finishing this that these three actually wouldn't be legal driving age by summer break but.... i hope this is still enjoyable despite that huge oversight on my part [lies down]
> 
> thanks for reading!
> 
> EDIT 2/12/19: i've updated this fic with a longer, beta'd version that i spruced up for a zine application. hope it's still enjoyable ahah

In a cruel twist of fate, the Karasuno Boys’ Volleyball Club bus refuses to start the day before they leave for the summer training camp in Tokyo.

In the ensuing panic of it all, Takeda-sensei assures them everything is fine and they can simply borrow one of the other school buses which, though smaller, should still fit most of the team.

The key word is _most_.

Karasuno’s appearances at Nationals have led to an exponential growth in club applications, meaning lots of new members and consequently less space on the bus. This is how Kei, one of the few third years with his driver’s license, finds himself sharing his car with the first third years who volunteered to give up their seats to their kouhai.

On Kei’s mental list of people he can tolerate long drives with, Hinata and Kageyama do not even come within ten kilometers of it. On the drives to scrimmages or tournaments, he usually drowns them out with music or sleeps the entire time, but there’s no avoiding them when he’s the one driving. So when the night of departure rolls around and all his other teammates clamber aboard the bus, Kei opens his car doors to Hinata and Kageyama with extreme apprehension.

In the first hour of the drive, they obliterate the bag of snacks Kei tossed their way at the start in the hope that it would distract them for the entire duration. In the second, they bicker about which brand of athletic socks are the best and take out their own pairs from their bags to compare. By the third, they’re dead asleep.

Kei wonders how it took them this long when they’ve been driving in the middle of the night. Then he remembers that the prospect of playing against Tokyo’s top-ranked schools is a headier stimulant for those two than the can of coffee he sips at during the drive. That makes him think about Hinata on caffeine which is an amusing enough image to make him snort before muffling a yawn into his hand.

The rear lights of the bus ahead of him are two red flares burned into his eyelids when he blinks. The current time on the dashboard says 3:37AM, and Tokyo still feels so far away. He hopes the rest of the team doesn’t mind him dropping face first into a futon when they arrive because there’s no way he’s blocking any spikes after this.

“Wanna switch?”

He blinks.

Kageyama is awake in the backseat, watching him with sleepy eyes through the rearview mirror.

Kei raises an eyebrow. “You were asleep a second ago.”

Kageyama shrugs. “Now I’m not.” He yawns.

“Do you even have your license?”

“I got it a couple weeks ago.”

“Really?” Kei can’t help the disbelief in his voice. Kageyama barely sets aside time to do homework let alone practice anything other than volleyball.

“Parents made me.” Kei can’t see much of him in the darkness of the rearview mirror but he can hear him rooting around in his bag for something. There’s the crinkling sound of a wrapper being torn, and Kageyama’s voice is muffled by the protein bar he’s chewing when he says, “So I can drive if you’re tired.”

Kei narrows his eyes. “How do I know you’re any good?”

Kageyama scoffs. “Come on, I’m not gonna crash your car, there’s no way I’m missing the training camp.”

Figures that’s a more pressing issue for Kageyama than immediate bodily injury or the possibility of ruining Kei’s car, even if it’s just a hand me down from Akiteru.

Kei taps a finger against the steering wheel, glances at the time again. As much as he wants to deny it, he really is tired.

He sighs. “Fine. Text the others that we’re switching.”

He takes the next exit and pulls into a gas station.

When Kageyama takes the driver’s seat, Kei watches warily from the back beside a snoring Hinata. But at this hour, the road is nearly empty and Kei would actually be impressed if he managed to hit something. Kageyama has to tug the seat a little more forward which Kei lets himself feel smug about, then he buckles his seatbelt, adjusts the mirrors, and uses his turn signal as he pulls out into the darkened street.

So far so good. Kei doesn’t know exactly what he expected but it’s not really surprising that Kageyama drives with a similar amount of precision to what he gives on the volleyball court. The brief flash of a passing street light illuminates the frown of concentration on Kageyama’s face, but it softens after he merges onto the highway and the long lull of the drive begins.

Caution makes Kei want to watch a little longer, but sleep tugs at his eyelids more insistently with each passing moment. He could take out his headphones to try and use music to stay awake, but right now it just feels like too much effort.

Kageyama is doing fine. Kei leans his head against the cool glass of the window, closes his eyes, and lets himself trust.

When he wakes, Hinata and Kageyama are yelling.

“ _Oi_ , that car wasn’t black, it was gray!”

He cracks an eye, and when light doesn’t immediately come flooding in he assumes it’s still dark outside. He opens his eyes properly, raises a hand to his face to see if his glasses have fallen off in his sleep and thankfully finds them in their rightful place.

He stretches his legs, at least as far as his tiny car allows him to, and notices that Hinata migrated to the front seat at some point during his nap and that Kageyama looks livid for a reason Kei can only assume is idiotic.

“It was totally black!” Hinata says.

“Was not!”

“Oh look, another one.” He punches Kageyama in the arm.

“Ow! Why you—” Kageyama swipes at Hinata’s head with one hand but Hinata backs away laughing and presses himself up against the passenger side door.

“What are you doing?” Kei says flatly, rubbing his eye.

“We’re playing a game!” Hinata properly settles back in his seat after Kageyama grumbles and returns his hand to the steering wheel. “I get to punch Kageyama for every black car we see.”

“And I get to punch him for every white one,” Kageyama says. “So you better tell me if you see any.”

Kei raises an eyebrow at him. “Why did you pick black when every dark car is going to look black in this light?”

“It was the first color I could think of, alright!” He hunches his shoulders, an embarrassed pink coloring the tips of his ears.

“Psst, Tsukishima-kun,” Hinata stage whispers over his headrest, “don’t question it, okay, I’ve punched Kageyama like ten times.”

“Only because you’re a liar that points out blue cars,” Kageyama accuses.

“I’m not a liar! That one was black, right?”

“I’m not helping you bludgeon each other.” Kei looks at his phone to check the time. 4:31AM, meaning he slept for about an hour. He strongly considers going back to sleep to save himself from their bickering.

But then Hinata says, “You should pick a color too, Tsukishima.”

“White car.” Kageyama’s fist shoots out lightning quick, straight into Hinata’s shoulder.

“Ouch! Dammit, Kageyama!”

“Orange,” Kei says tiredly while reaching around for his water bottle somewhere in the mountain of empty chip bags and sports duffels next to him.

“Eh? Orange?” Hinata pouts. “Cheater, we never see orange cars.”

“Exactly.”

After some digging, he finally finds his water bottle. As he opens it and takes a drink, he feels something land on his lap.

A protein bar.

“You should eat something,” Hinata says, looking at Kei again over his seat. “It’s been hours and you’ve been driving most of the time. Plus, you’re so tall you must get super hungry.”

“That doesn’t explain your own freakish appetite.” The instinctual quip leaves his lips lightly, easily. Two years ago Hinata might have bristled and shot something back, but now he just grins and goes back to watching the road closely for black cars. Kei wonders why they ate all the snacks he gave them when they had their own food to begin with. Then his stomach grumbles a little, and he tears open the wrapper and takes a bite in lieu of saying something like _thanks_.

His phone buzzes with a text from Yamaguchi, the only third year left in charge of the kouhai along with Yachi on the bus. It says: _r u ok/has kageyama driven u off a cliff yet?_

Kei glances out the window. Trees speed past in a green blur, lush mountains on one side and the distant skyline of a passing city on the other. Kageyama rounds a curve on the highway, eyes focused and clear despite the hour, and he argues with Hinata about whether a passing car is blue or black.

The sun rises in the distance, just a thin yellow slit emerging over the tops of the buildings, slowly illuminating the dawn sky.

Kei has to admit he doesn’t feel as tired as he did earlier.

Between punches and bites of food and Hinata’s ringing laughter, Kei replies to Yamaguchi: _Everything’s okay._


End file.
